Dracula lafleurii Luer & Dalström 1993 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Dracula
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning La Fluer's Dracula [Swedish Co Discoverer of Species Current]
Flower Size 6 x 8" [15 x 20 cm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations around 1100 to 1850 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly obovate, acute, cuneate below into the conduplicate, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a horizontal to descending, 5.6" to 7.6" [14 to 19 cm] long, successively few flowered inflorescence arsing from low on the ramicaul and is sparsely bracted and has tubular, oblique, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the relatively large flower with long-tailed, acute sepals densely spotted with rust brown, especially towards the apices and bases. The sepals are also long-pubescewnt within. The pinkl, suborbicular epichile of the lip is most distinguishing. The deeply saccate cavity contains several radiating, branching, darker pink lamellae that curve up to the thin margin as tiny teeth." Luer 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 7 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1994 watercolor/drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Draculas Del Ecuador Pupulin, Merino and Medina 2009; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010; AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #9 2011 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 photo fide;
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